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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1981-03-11, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, March 1 1, 1981 '.;ave \:. Tames Established 1873 Advocate Established 1 881 Amalgamated 1924 imes dvoca e SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry D.Vries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 • +CNA Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Regestration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $17.00 Per Year; USA 535.00 L.E RBbC"v A,.ARu 1980 What's 12 billion? There's a rather monotonous TV commercial for a breakfast cereal firm that repeats the phrase "there's something you're not telling us". After continually beseeching the answer and finally receiving it, the main character admits -we knew it all along". In many respects, the commercial parallels the recent study into the pric- ing practices of Canada's major oil companies. It took eight years for the study to be completed and the results were of little surprise to anyone, except perhaps in their magnitude. Few people can comprehend what $12 billion represents. It perhaps takes on more meaning when it is noted that every man, woman and child in Canada has been bilked of $2,500. The figure could probably be doubled if the years from 1973 to 1981 were added in. The whole situation is mind boggl- ing. not only from the standpoint of the money involved, but the years it took to come up with those figures. Now, of course, the big question is what will happen to prove the guilt, to punish those responsible if the guilt is proven. and more importantly, to put an immediate halt to the practices if they are in fact continuing. If you're waiting at the gasoline pumps for someone to come along and roll back prices, chances are you'll have a long wait. It took eight years to come up with the report and it will quite possibly take that long to get some action, if in fact any does come about. The main hope for Canadians is that the federal government will show enough fortitude to immediately take steps to halt the practices which have permitted the rip off and point up once again that the virtues of the free enter- prise system are only attainable when those involved are virtuous. It's contagious What's to become of Huron Coun- ty? Will it ever receive some good publicity? Since thedays of the trialof Steven Truscott, the county has had more than its share of glaring headlines that most would just as soon forget. The national press appear to take delight at uncovering some of the un- savory items that no doubt appear elsewhere as regularly, but just never seem to get the same attention. The list for Huron is lengthy. A former Exeter mayor made the national media with complaints about the foreigners in the provincial civil service; then we went through the problems of banning books from county high schools; and just last week our faces turned red again when the Premier of Ontario didn't like our jokes and the male service clubs in Seaforth gave the boot to NDP candidate Gwen Pemberton because she was a woman. This newspaper would like to make some comment on the situation to point up that Huron residents in general aren't really as bad as they're painted, but we too fearthoseexplanations may be misconstrued and we'd end up with the county's perennial "foot -in -mouth" disease. Oh that hindsight preceded action! Apathy blamed Many parents and taxpayers are shocked this week over the swiftness with which the Huron County Board of Education trustees. with constant prod- ding from the administration, decided to close down the machine shop at Cen- tral Huron Secondary School. And that's only the start. Many find it incredulous that in a nation such as Canada where a shor- tage of skilled help exists. and where the provincial government is en- couraging apprenticeship programs for the trades. that such a thing would happen. They cant understand (and neither can v.e why a board with a $26 million dollar budget can't find $50,000 to educate our youth to the place where they will he able to find a job on gradua- tion But we have only ourselves to blame. All those hoard seats were up for grabs in last falls election. and with a few exceptions. all were filled by acclamation. uncontested. without a single whimper. Oh we know. the board can trot out By SYD FLETCHER Martha not her real name) was not a pretty girl. Across the whole one side of her face was a huge purple birth mark that caught one's attention even if she was standing in a Targe group of people In addition she wore large black spectacles that seem- ed to be totally unsuited to her and further detracted from her appearance all kinds of statistics, quote enrollment figures. say their hands are tied by a signed agreement with the teachers with 85 per cent of their budget going to salaries. or the grants are down etc., etc.. etc.. but the basic question everyone is asking is: who the hell is the education system for anyway? The teachers? The administrators? The board members? Or the children? What's the sense in having a bunch of students educated in arts courses if there's no job for them? Why are we spending millions of dollars on useless courses that lead to nowhere? It's no wonder the schools are filled with bored kids. searching for an indentity and kicks wherever they can find them. Our own apathy to the whole system is the blame, and now everyone is wondering what can be done. Educa- tion is more than justexpensive cement block buildings. filled with expensive experts. and expensive books and the sooner we learn that, the better it will be. Clinton News -Record Perspectives I had seen her the year before she came into my (,rade 11 class. ivly initial impression was of shock, then sympathy. How would a person so obviously han- dicapped ever cope with a life where people would probably almost instinctive- ly pull away from her? Six weeks into the term 1 realized how completely wrong I was. Martha was the life of the class. She was the first one to volunteer for oral assignments and seem- ed to be a natural leader whose enthusiasm and openness carried the class along into new depths in the course of study that 1 had never thought possible. The rest of the class liked her, found her tremendously amusing and interesting. A lot of them had been with her for many years of her school career and did not even notice the mark on her face. They just accepted it, as she did. Soon I was with them in that respect and was able to ignore it completely and accept her at face value, if you'll pardon the pun. By the end of the year I had learned my lesson, thoroughly I hope, that a person's true worth is only rarely what you see on the outside. "I think my fixed income could use a Jew repairs." Strong words unwarranted Members of Exeter council were quite correct last week in not adhering to a request from the Bank of Montreal to reconsider their bid for the town's services. The bank. similar to all others in the municipality, was given an opportunity to present its offer in the initial call for presentations, and having lost in that competition, should not expect another opportunity to sweeten the pot. That would obviously undermine the tendering procedure as it is now es- tablished, although it must be recogniz- ed that allowing bidders a second chance to present the best deal could result in some interesting savings on most contracts. The problem, of course. is that the rich would suffer their losses for a while and in the end would completely eliminate their op- position and then put prices back where they wanted. However, council may have gone too far in suggesting that the local manager was challenging their integri- ty and ability. In fact, the manner in which the presentations were received and handled did leave council open to some criticism and question. The first question is whether the system used was a proper tender call. It appeared to be vastly different in many respects from the procedure used on all other types of tenders. Nor- mally, the work to be performed is spelled out specifically and each bidder is given the same deadline in which to present a written quotation. Those quotations are then opened at a public meeting, the contents reviewed and the best tender is then accepted. • Few of those normal guidelines were followed, and while there is no reason to question the integrity of those in- volved, there appears ample room to say that the challenge to the tendering procedure may be appropriate. Was it really a tender? Council's letter of reply to the Bank of Montreal uses such words as "proposal", "briefs", "submissions". Those words obviously leave some doubt as to what system was used, although the end result should be the same. The so-called tenders were presented to a committee of council in person by representatives of the various in- stitutions. The reason, as stated in council's letter, was "to hear their briefs and to pose questions for clarification". That's far from the nor- mal procedure in tender calls. However, the main problem was that the recommendation made by the com- mittee which heard the briefs, was not accompanied by any facts or figures to support the recommendation. This newspaper has previously made reference to that situation and those facts and figures have not yet been presented to the entire council and the public. • • Unitl last week's meeting, no ratepayer, including the local manager of the Bank of Montreal, had any public information on which to judge council's decision. On most tender calls, of course, that information is gleaned when the tenders are opened in public and the facts and figures on which council make a decision are revealed for everyone to see, including the un- successful bidders. Without that information, suggestions such as "the Town will gain nothing but inconvenience" can be expected. Comments at a previo(is council session indicate other ratepayers expressed concern and criticism over the decision, although Suaar and Spice Dispesed by Smiley More' on Canadian winter Winter in this country is nothing to write home about. Especially if your home is California, or Texas, or Florida. We had a visitor this week from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He had never seen snow before. He couldn't believe how we sur- vived. Had a ride with a cab driver about a week ago. He was from the West Indies. It was one of those comparatively mild days, about sixteen Fahrenheit. It had been away below zero for about a week. As a good Canadian, I commented on the weather. "Nice to see the cold spell over." His response, "Mon, I am frieezing to death. I been freezing to death since I come this ?!!&z: country two years ago." The vast majority of Canadians hate winter, with a deep, unrestrained violence. They hate struggling into boots and overcoats, and cars that won't start and the town snowplow, which fills their driveway just after it has been shovelled, and getting up in the dark to go to work, and having something like a sauna bath in overheated stores, and shivering and shuddering waiting for a bus or street car. Some people like it, the imbeciles: skiers, curlers, ice fishermen and small children. and misanthropes of all varieties. I don' t'liketto'make'alspecial case, but I think winter affects tnat fairly large segment of our population involved in the educational process even 'more deeply than all the other winter -haters. It is a grinding, wearing, tearing process for teachers, students, custodians, bus drivers, and even the ladies who dish up the grub in the cafeteria. If the human body reaches its lowest point at around four a.m., education reaches its lowest point in the long Jan. -Feb. haul. There's nary a holiday in those two months. Christmas vacation is but a memory, and the March break is so far off you wonder if you're going to make it without going goofy or slitting your wrists. From January to March, teachers are either catching or getting over the 'flu. One head -cold is followed by another. It seems that a third of the staff - the smart ones who don't stagger in to work half alive - are home sick. That means more work for the dumb ones, like me, who stagger in to work half-dead. We have to cover for them, which means your couple of spare periods, normally used to mark papers, plan lessons, and try to get over the chaos of the last class, go out the win- dow. We hate the one at home in bed, or sitting up, drinking lemonade and rum and watching TV It's even harder on the students. Many of them stay up until midnight watching the box, get up in the dark at some ungodly hour, stand in a blizzard Mayor Bruce Shaw indicated that former banker had been satisfied with the decision after he had privately been given the details. The quotations in tender calls should not be classified information given out only when there are questions or criticisms and it is doubtful if only cer- tain ratepayers should be provided with the information. Surely it's public in- formation and should be treated as such. The point is not primarily to criticize council or question the procedure in receiving presentations or briefs from the Local financial institutions, although in future they should perhaps be more specific in which category they are working. It would appear quite appropriate for a committee to entertain submissions or briefs and to make a recommenda- tion on the information received as long as all council members and the public are given the facts and figures on which that :ecommendation is based. If it is to be a formal tender, then the rules for calling and accepting tenders should be followed. The main criticism in view of the rather harsh words aimed at the Bank of Montreal. is whether council has the right to be so indignant over what they read into a letter. There is no reason to challenge the integrity and ability of the finance com- mittee on their conclusion and recommendation to council, although there is room to challenge council itself for having approved the recommenda- tion for the banking change without get- ting the facts and figures. This newspaper made that point previously and if that is being arrogant and demeaning... well, so be it. for ten minutes waiting for a bus, and drive twenty miles toward something that bores them out of their skulls. Others. living in town, walk anywhere from half a mile to a mile and a half.half-frozen, heads bared to the elements and throats unscarved, as is the way of youth. It's no wonder they are tired out, sur- ly, insolent. and groan loudly when they are asked to do some work. They are bound to be resentful when some stupid teacher says they're going to have a test tomorrow and they missed the en- tire week when that work was taught, because they were in bed with the 'flu. And the kids are sick. The sniffing, nose -blowing and coughing drown out the teachers voice, already enfeebled by another sore throat. Custodians, or janitors, as they used to be called, have all the problems of teachers, but must mop up every day the ocean of snow and salt and sand tracked onto their pristine linoleum by teachers and students. School bus drivers also have all the aches of rising at an unearthly hour, getting the old bus started and warmed up, coping with a group of unruly kids just coming alive, and fighting their way through drifts and blizzards and freezing rain and stupid drivers who stall in the middle of the highway, or go into a skid right in front of the bus. Even the cafeteria ladies have to Ltiainstream Canada The ownership issue By W. Roger Worth People operating smaller firms in Canada favor greater Canadian ownership of the country's oil and natural gas industry. That message comes through loud and clear in results of a questionnaire among the 57,000 members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Responses from more than 15,000 members Indicated 37% placed a "high priority" on such action and 42% believed it an "important" issue. Only 20% believed greater Canadian ownership is "not important" at this time. In effect, members backed the basic ownership element in Ottawa's far-reaching Na- tional Energy Policy. What's intriguing is that in separate questions, 70% of respondents backed a move toward higher oil prices, rejecting the federal govern- ment position and supporting arguments of the producing provinces. The response is perhaps remarkable because many smaller firms would be hit hard by substantially higher heating and fuel bilis. Federation President John Bulloch says members have taken a long-term view on the energy situation. "They understand that conservation and substitution won't take place at prices that are half those paid by the rest of the world," he says. Nevertheless, Federation members weren't backward about who should take the in- itiative to break the present federal -provincial impasse over energy pricing. More than 63% believed Ottawa should make the first move, offering greater com- promises. AOIIAR SEM Small business owners get better deal on taxes By Murray Rumack, CA For many years, small- business people in partner- ships and unincorporated businesses have been getting a raw deal on taxes from Revenue Canada. They were not allowed to deduct, as legitimate business expenses, the salaries they paid to their spouses. That inequity has been corrected for the 1980 tax Dollar Sense offers general financial advice by members of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. year and the result is an array of opportunities for income splitting -- that is, handing over income from the more highly -taxed spouse to the spouse with the lower income, hence lower taxes. But first, husbands or wives seeking to deduct their spouse's salaries must get an employer number, if they do not have one, from their district taxation office and must withhold the proper tax from their spouse's salaries. They also are required to file a T4 information slip report- ing the tax withheld and to collect and remit Canada Pension Plan contributions. The salary paid must be reasonable under the cir- cumstances -- in other words, a secretary's wages for a secretary's work. Now for the advantages: • The second spouse's income (usually the wife) will likely reduce the higher marginal rate of the hus- band on her income, for example, Canada Pension. • There is an exemption on the first 11,000 of pen- sion income and the first 11,000 of certain invest- ment income from Cana- dian sources. But you must have the income before you get the exemptions. By setting up a deferrld profit or registered pension plan for the employee -spouse, as for other employees, you are qualifying your em- ployee -spouse for the in- vestment and/orpension income deduction on retire- ment in duplication to your own, thus doubling the exemptions and increasing take home income. If the spouse is able to start an investment plan, he or she also will qualify for the investment deduct- ion. Both are forms of mcome-splitting because the higher -income spouse is in effect transferring income to the lower-income spouse. • Have you considered having the lower-income spouse buy a share of the business? The new partner would be entitled to a share of the profits and be taxed at her/his lower rate. Again, income -splitting. • The employee -spouse now will also be elegible for a separate RRSP (Register ed Retirement Savings Plan) with a separate ceiling, the lesser of 15,500 a year or 20 per cent of income. . • If you don't own a home, the lower-income spouse could also invest in a separate RHOSP (Regist- ered Home Ownership Savings Plan), the only kind of tax shelter on which you never pay tax providing the proceeds are used to buy a home. Each of you has a limit of 11,000 a year or 110,000 in a lifetime -• for a potential 120,000 (plus earnings) of tax-free dollars to go into a home say 10 years from now. Murray Rumack is with Murray Rumack Stern & Cohen, Chartered Account- ants, In Toronto. punch their way through drifts, batteries that won't kick over, icy roads, frozen french fries, and come up smiling. Some of my students, in a recent essay, stated that one man cannot change the system, and that we must com- promise our principles and go along with it or try to change it by degrees and legislation. Jesus changed the world. So did Copernicus. So did Mahatma Ghandi. Einstein? The guy who invented TV. The guy who invented the whell. Stephenson, who invented the internal combustion engine. Alexander Graham Bell, whose relicts are practically supported by my wife. The entire school system is still in the nineteenth cen- tury, when the long summer holiday was established because boys and girls had to help with the farm -work in the summer months. Ridiculous. The work is now done by machines. I here and now advocate, implore, and insist that school continue through the summer months, and that January and February be declared the long vacation. And if there is no response. don't expect me to be teaching next year at this time. The difference between you and a person who's fit is that anything you can do he can kill do better. paan(,pa(rion e The Oureten eranwn to few tlMtsss